by B.L.in Other0 comments
I finally saw the famous Pepsi commercial starring the one and the only Kendall Jenner who is part of the Kardashian clan. I started thinking about what it means to be an activist. When I was around Kendall’s age, I volunteered to help the Robert Kennedy campaign for president at Ohio State University. I believed in the things he said he would do for young people, old people, poor people, Black, Brown, and white people. Mainly I thought he would get us out of the Viet Nam War. Along with multitudes of other young people, I went on trips across America to encourage people to vote in the presidential primary and then the election in November 1968. The things I saw lead me to believe America was great for some people, but for most poor people, living in America was sheer hell. The people I met lived in tarpaper shacks. I couldn’t believe that in 1968, people lived in the kind of housing I’d only seen in history books 100 years ago. The center picture is me, my son, and my co-workers gathering on September 19, 1981 to participate in the Solidarity March on Washington for PATCO, the disbanded air […]

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I just read some trolls’ tweets about how Michelle Obama was disappointing Black women everywhere because her hair wasn’t permed or relaxed. She was wearing it natural. At first, I thought, What? Since when did Black hairstyles become anybody’s business but the wearer’s? Or at least that’s what I first thought until I started reading women’s tweets and remembering way back when I first started wearing an Afro in college in 1966. When I was a kid, there two huge things I hated about being a girl in the Baby Boomer generation. I absolutely hated wearing dresses. I hated getting my hair straightened, combed, and braided every day. My mother decided her girls, meaning my sister and me, should dress like little ladies every day. The more frilly or trimmed in lace, the better the dress was for “her girls.” My mother somehow managed to find socks trimmed in lace and hair ribbons to match our dresses. Oh, how I hated going to school looking like that. The only saving grace for me was that everybody’s mother dressed her girls exactly like my mother did with us. My mother decided that her girls better wear neatly braided hair every day […]

by B.L.in Latest Novels0 comments
It’s been nearly six months since the main characters from Two Moons Bakery met and fell in love or broke up. This Forever Woman sequel, Get Reckless With The Truth, but don’t lie, follows secondary characters, executive assistant Edith Mack and legal eagle Danielle Turner into a tumultuous affair that ends almost before it begins with an attempted murder. Ex-wives who think they are still married. Lovers who hate liars but sleep with them anyway and lesbians who fall for their stalkers –oh my! Get Reckless With The Truth, but don’t lie, is available for pre-order 4/22/17 on Kindle. The release date is 5/2/17. ASIN: B071KQ1ZY3 (Kindle Version $2.99) ISBN-13: 978-1545506134 (Print Version $9.99) ISBN-10: 1545506132 (Print Version $9.99) Here are the links for: GET RECKLESS WITH THE TRUTH, but don’t lie: Amazon Kindle USA: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071KQ1ZY3 Amazon Kindle UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B071KQ1ZY3 Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/7109727 Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/719828 Book trailer: https://youtu.be/G5Lz0RcYF24

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Long before the L word and The Planet, I wanted to write a story about a meeting space in Central Harlem where African American lesbians and their friends could meet, mix and mingle. I envisioned telling a series of short stories about the women who inhabited the place but first I had to decide what kind of place would women want to meet and greet each other. At first, I thought about making the meeting place a bar. I decided against it because I’d always had bad luck meeting people at bars. I’m not a drinker and the smoky fog from them always gave me sneezing fits. I never met nice people I’d want to spend more than a minute talking to in a bar. For me, hanging out in bars was torture. I discovered I was allergic to cigarettes and I hated the barflies I met. I quickly nixed the idea the centralized meeting place should be a bar. The more I thought about what to write, the more I realized my story could take place in a restaurant, a sandwich/coffee shop or a small boutique store or a bookstore. My newly created meeting space needed to be someplace […]

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I’m not one for religious symbolism but the more I hear about foreign involvement in our democratic election system, I keep thinking of a song I used to hear in church Sunday mornings. I was a kid back then. Everybody knows Baby boomer children couldn’t say. “Mom, Dad I’m not going to church. It’s Sunday morning. I think I just sit this visit out. I don’t like how that old guy wearing that long robe talks to us. He’s always screaming about devils and doing bad stuff from that platform he stands on. You and Dad might like him but he scares the mess out of me. Today, I’ll just sit home and do something that makes me happy. Watching Sunday morning cartoons makes me happy so I’ll be doing that today, okay? I’ll see you both when you get back from church if I’m not napping, right?” No way was that going to fly with my parents back then. In the only thing flying, would be my butt into next week. That would be after I was released from the children’s ward of the hospital my father’s opened can of whup ass sent me. So anyway, there’s a line […]

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My sister sent me this message several months ago, when I was feeling low down and a bit helpless. I loved it so much I decided to pass it on. Thanks Sis. My only comment, I would add some additional suggestions to Number 9. If you can’t show up and be counted because of limitations, you can still do something. Call your representatives like I did or email them or write to them like I did. All of that works too. The point is to do something positive. Don’t stay in your own little bubble world and complain about how bad things are if you aren’t willing to do more than complain. Read the rest of the advice below. It needs no further explanation From a friend’s page. Sound advice for the times. This is also going around and for good reason: Don’t use his name. Remember this is a regime and he’s not acting alone. Do not belittle those who support him–it doesn’t work. Focus on his policies, not his orange-ness or his toupee. Keep your message positive; they want the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which their darkest policies will […]

by B.L.in Latest Novels0 comments
Two Moons Bakery is a trilogy of novellas about relationships among African-American lesbians, their friends, and family who live in NYC. The three stories interconnect through a central meeting place called Two Moons Bakery. Terry Samson and Essie Brooks are the co-owners of the bakery. In the first novella, entitled MAYDEANE, a middle-aged, conservative businesswoman, Sylvia Royce, must learn to accept the love of a younger woman, Fredericka Hicks, who drives cabs for a living. MAYDEANE also touches on a problem baby boomers face: to put an aging parent with Alzheimer’s into a nursing housing or not. The second story, LEGS, introduces the reader to an unlikely pairing. Somebody’s been whistling at Delaney Peters, an ER doctor, for the last five days precisely at 7 AM. When she confronts a worker in the manhole, she discovers it’s female electrician, Andrea Joiner. They meet again in the ER when Delaney treats Andrea’s eyes for chemical burns from an electrical fire in the manhole where she works. In the third novella, WORKSPACES, Janelle Montgomery is a geriatric psychiatrist who works from her home. She wants customized shelves built similar to the ones in Two Moons to hold her never-ending paperwork. Terry refers […]

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Once again, I’ve taken aim at long lost love and ex-lovers meeting again after an acrimonious break up. This time, nearly three decades have passed between the ex-lovers. It’s been long enough that each woman now has grown children who against all odds, meet, fall in love and want to marry. If I was either woman what would I do? Would I tell my child who their fiancée’s mother is? Or could I or would I ignore the past and focus on my child’s future? What would it do to me or my ex-lover to become in-laws? I decided to add a subplot to the mix. One of the women has cancer while the other woman happens to be an trauma surgeon. Now what would I do if I was the woman with cancer or if I was the woman with the medical degree? I thought the premise was interesting enough to write a novel called THE WEDDING THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN, finding love after 27 years to answer those questions and more. Connect with BL Wilson at these links: Blog: http://wilsonbluez.com Facebook Business Page: https://www.facebook.com/patchworkbluezpress Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1BDmrjJ Linked-in: http://linkd.in/1ui0iRu Twitter: http://bit.ly/11fAPxR Smashwords profile page: http://bit.ly/1sUKQYP Amazon’s Author Page: http://bit.ly/1tY3e27

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In honor of Women’s History Month, once again I’m using some of that research I dug up and didn’t use for the first post. As I mentioned before, I wanted to introduce readers to women that might not be in the typical history books. This next woman was a series of firsts which she asked not to be remembered for when she died. I’m going to go down the list of her firsts anyway because knowledge is power. We should all know about her. Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman to run for congress and win. In 1968, she won a seat in congress representing the 12th District in Brooklyn. She represented her district from 1969 to 1983. She was also the first woman of Caribbean to win a seat in congress. Her mother was born in Barbados. Her father was from British Guiana. Four years later in 1972, she was the first person of African American descent to run for nomination in a major party for president of the United States. She was also the first woman to run for president of the United States from the Democratic party. She served as a role model for many […]

by B.L.in Other0 comments
In honor of Women’s History Month, I’m introducing readers to women not easily found in history books. I hope you find her words as inspiring as I did. Abolitionist, Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) was enslaved until she escaped in 1826. She devoted the rest of her life to speaking out against slavery and for equal rights for women. She helped free and formerly enslaved Blacks, relocate to western states. Here’s what she had to say in 1851, delivering a speech entitled “Ain’t I A Woman” in Akron Ohio at a Women’s Conference. “Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered […]